I heart spinach
Heart disease is one of the top causes of death in America; this is why February is Heart Healthy Month.
Bearing that in mind, we will feature heart healthy dishes all month. Let others lead you astray with the high-calorie, high-fat foods associated with the BIG football game. This column will show you the way to make your body strong.
Greens are so rich in nutrients that they are considered a super food. We eat a goodly amount of greens in the Chef Darrel household. Spinach is one of the items at the top of the list. Fresh baby spinach is readily available in the supermarket in a variety of sizes. I like to make our salads using half chopped romaine lettuce and half fresh baby spinach. Another way to enjoy this super food is in creamed spinach.
Creamed spinach was a regular side dish as I grew up. Yes, I did eat spinach as a child but it had nothing to do with Popeye! My mother often cooked seafood, usually broiled whitefish, and she almost always coupled that with creamed Spinach. So I have fond memories of dinner with my mother and creamed spinach.
Over the years, I often have tried restaurant creamed spinach, usually without much success. I make it at home, and it’s always great in my kitchen. So I would like to share this recipe with you. In the wide, wide world of food service, creamed spinach is considered a steakhouse dish. It is a featured vegetable in many of the finest steakhouses across the Untied States. This particular recipe is adapted from the dish served at Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I have substituted some of the butter for heart healthy extra virgin olive oil.
Creamed spinach
Béchamel sauce
2 cups whole milk, 2 percent mike is OK
2 whole cloves
1 bay leaf
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
½ medium onion, minced
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
Spinach
1 pound fresh baby spinach leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
For the béchamel sauce, heat the milk with the cloves and the bay leaf in a medium saucepan until just below the boiling point. Remove from heat, cover and set aside.
In a separate pan, heat the butter and sauté the onion, with a pinch of salt, until translucent; do not brown. Add the extra virgin olive oil and flour; cook, stirring constantly, for two to three minutes. Discard the cloves and bay leaf from the hot milk and whisk the milk into the onion-oil-flour mixture. Continue to whisk while this comes to a simmer, when it reaches the boiling point it will have thickened. Reduce heat and simmer for three to four minutes stirring occasionally.
For the spinach, heat the two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in a large fry pan. Add the chopped spinach, a pinch of salt and stir, folding bottom up to the top as the spinach wilts. Continue this until the spinach is fully wilted. Top a dinner plate with a paper towel and turn out the spinach. The paper towel will absorb any excess moisture.
Stir the spinach into the béchamel sauce and warm thoroughly. Serve and enjoy! Oh, yes, one more thing. Since my mother always served creamed spinach with fish, and we always had lemon wedges to squeeze onto our seafood, I got used to adding lemon to my creamed spinach. So if you have some lemon in the house give a squeeze of lemon wedge over the creamed spinach, it’s a winner.
